


Take Instead The Ram

by robotsfighting



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-30
Updated: 2011-08-30
Packaged: 2017-10-23 06:42:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/247329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/robotsfighting/pseuds/robotsfighting
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blaine runs away from the things that scare him, and Kurt chases after him. Takes place some time between <i>Silly Love Songs</i> and <i>Blame It On The Alcohol</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take Instead The Ram

From the edge of the woods surrounding the property, Blaine could see his parents’ house glowing softly in the dark. Nearly every window at the back of the house was bright, settling rectangles of yellow-gold in checkerboard patterns against the unbroken snow. His parents were asleep, but they always left the lights on. It was an old habit that had never quite died away. Standing there beneath the line of trees, with his deep footprints the only imperfection between him and the back door, Blaine knew that the single dark window belonged to the guest bedroom where Kurt was sleeping. It was ironic in a way that made Blaine vaguely ill.

He could feel the cold on every inch of himself, winding into the space between his coat and scarf, stealing into the gaps at his wrists between his sleeves and gloves. It was late February, and the night sky was odd-bright with gray clouds, threatening more snow soon to cover his tracks across the field, around the frozen pond and to this place, where Blaine had needed to stop and turn around and _look_ , for a moment, at what he was running away from tonight.

The ache was so familiar it was almost pleasant, buried deeply inside of him, something he could never reach to rub away. It was something he used to look for, when he would stand in this spot, younger and more beaten. He’d liked it; it wasn’t painful as much as it was brutally nostalgic. It filled him up, making him feel like the eye of a storm, like this potential for something terrible to happen. It had apparently stopped working, in the time since he’d gone away. Now it only felt more cold and detached, standing in the snow with the wind battering him, numb and empty, looking at a place that had once been warm for him. The distance felt like much more than it was. Blaine could have been miles and miles away, looking at this house from a hilltop somewhere, just pinpoints of light in the black. Some unfamiliar house, with unfamiliar ghosts sleeping in each room. And Kurt, somehow. It was so strange to think that he was inside, and asleep, like nothing had happened, while Blaine walked out into the cold to get away from it.

He turned, lifting his flashlight from its bright forgotten pool at his feet, and started into the woods. The trees loomed over him, patchmarked birches narrow and bright, almost glowing in contrast to the heavy dark. The beam of his flashlight bounced with each creaking step in the fresh powder, up to his ankles, making the cuffs of his jeans damp and heavy. The handle of the portable camping heater in his other hand dug into his palm even through his glove as it swung, back and forth, with a muted rattling of metal against metal.

The route was muscle memory, even after more than a year of living away from this place, even with the snow obscuring everything to look foreign and unfamiliar. He’d been here so many hundreds of times, with the plastic grip of the flashlight and the steady weight of the heater, walking out alone in the dark. It was a hiding place, when the world became _too much_. It was a place to run, day or night, and he knew the way better than he had ever known anything. After five years of sneaking down the hall, down the stairs and away, Blaine’s parents had never once found him, or stopped him, or said anything at all. And that opened the ache a little more, because he thought they knew. They knew he ran away, and they knew why. But they kept sleeping.

So he kept going, deeper into the woods, to find what he was looking for.

The tree house was at the edge of a rough little clearing, built into the intersecting, sturdy branches of three very old trees. Blaine stopped below, staring up at it, letting the beam of his flashlight trail along the dark wet wood of the exterior, the roof burdened with snow. It was still in good shape – a little warped, but _there_ , which was almost more than he could have hoped for. It had been more than a year since he’d seen it, but it was still automatic to reach out and tug the pulley rope down, tie the handle of the heater to it and set it carefully on the ground before slipping the flashlight into his coat pocket and starting up the ladder.

He wobbled a little at the top. It had been a long time, and he’d gotten taller, enough that it was almost disorienting to stand up straight on the platform in front of the doorway, like he was Alice grown however many sizes, looking at a familiar place from a new height. The metal pulley hanging from a thick branch clanked in the wind to his right, and he reached out for it, pulling the stiff, wet rope until it started to pool in loops at his feet, still tied with some boy scout knot to the railing along the edge of the platform. The heater appeared after a moment, and he pulled it over, untying it and tossing the rope back over the edge.

He turned, trepidation building to his throat, and pushed door open to stand in the doorway, his breath coming a little faster, a tiny nervous crawl under his skin. The interior was the same as he had left it; some gaps where weather had damaged the wood, some snow, but nothing serious, nothing irreversible, and it loosened the nervous bundle in his chest a little. It still smelled the way that he remembered it, old wood and nature, and all of those sourceless little childhood smells that reminded him of building the place, in the Spring, with tools heavy in his hands as he gave them to his father. Sketched plans pinned to the single finished wall, fluttering in the warm wind; his dad’s voice singing along softly to the songs on the radio hanging from a branch nearby. It was the last time Blaine could remember his father singing. It was the last time he could remember anything really, perfectly good.

He let out a breath, standing in the middle of the tree house, and it frosted in the air.

He set the heater down against the wall and turned the dial all the way up, listening to the click and slow hiss of it beginning to warm up. He sat beside it, his back resting against the wood, his legs splayed out in front of him. His flashlight rattled when he put it down, and he pushed it lightly with the tips of his fingers, letting it roll back and forth, the beam swinging slowly from one corner to the other, then back again.

He could see the lights of the house, a little, fractured by black branches and distant, but bright, like little broken stars. Blaine watched them and waited for the heater to start working, rubbing his hands slowly together through his gloves.

Blaine could remember sitting in this spot at nine, ten, eleven, lining up his army men in peaceful formations, singing quietly under his breath whatever song they’d learned in music class that week ( _Old Abram Brown is dead and gone, you’ll never see him, no--_ ). Then he was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sitting with his back straight, his hands in his lap held loose and sore from rubbing the same words off of his locker after school every day, his body aching from shoulder checks and from the deep, pervading loneliness of what was happening to him. He would watch the slow crawl of the sunlight over the floor as the evening came on, waiting to be empty and calm before walking back into the house, only to come back out hours later, more desperately alone than ever because there was nowhere he actually belonged.

The look on his father’s face that evening had brought those feelings crashing back into Blaine, as he stood there in the foyer next to Kurt, introducing him. His mother’s smile had turned nervous, and his father’s had just fallen off, when met with Blaine’s guest. ( _Can I have a friend over this weekend?_ ) Kurt, with his fragile features and his high, sweet voice and his clothes from out of magazines. ( _His family lives two hours away from the space where the Warblers are performing on Saturday._ ) Kurt, who wore who he was on his sleeve completely unapologetically. ( _He can’t stay at Dalton with me, but we could both stay at our house. We live ten minutes from the venue._ ) Kurt, who was Blaine’s best friend, and for whom Blaine burned with embarrassment and shame when his father turned with an uncomfortable mumble and walked stiffly up the stairs. ( _I would really appreciate it. And I haven’t seen you guys in a while._ )

Blaine’s dad didn’t come back down all night. While Kurt was putting his bag in the guest room, Blaine’s mother pulled Blaine aside and told him in an anxious voice that it would be better if he and Kurt stayed downstairs in the living room, rather than in Blaine’s room alone. _It makes your father uncomfortable,_ she’d said, with eyes begging him not to argue. So he hadn’t.

They’d watched movies in the living room with space between them on the couch, and Blaine could see that Kurt sensed something was wrong, but he said nothing about it. Blaine sank further into himself with every hour, replaying that look of agitated discomfort on his dad’s face from his first glance at Kurt over and over again. This was never going to be okay. It was always going to be uncomfortable and strange, and Blaine had waited until midnight before he ran.

Lost in thought, the sound of boots on the ladder outside took a moment to catch up with him. He jumped, scrambling for the flashlight, his fingers unsteady and slippery in his gloves, dropping it with a dull _thunk_ of heavy plastic before finally lifting it and shining it at the edge of the platform, waiting.

Light hair appeared, and then Kurt was blinking with eyes narrowed at the sudden light. Blaine lowered the flashlight quickly and let out a bright, frozen breath when Kurt dragged himself up the rest of the way and ducked through the door to stand just inside, rubbing his arms and looking around.

Words failed Blaine in that moment. Something like _how--_ pushed to the surface, but couldn’t break through the wave of disorientation he felt, watching Kurt standing there with the world dark over his shoulder through the doorway. Kurt looked like something conjured out of nothing, or like a mirage, like Blaine could blink his eyes and Kurt would never have been there in the first place. No one ever came here. Blaine had never really had anyone to bring here at all.

Kurt’s arms stayed tucked around his body, his weight canted to one side, while his wandering eyes fell back to Blaine again. He looked uncomfortable at the silence, a faint blush rising on his cheeks, and he cut his eyes away, toward the windows. “Oddly enough,” he said into the quiet, “being alone in a guest room in your giant house isn’t really conducive to sleep.” He rubbed his arms again. “I heard you get up and go downstairs, then I looked out of the window and you looked like a Jack London character. So I might have followed you.” He looked back to Blaine, and Blaine watched the discomfort on his face soften into something uncertain, a little hesitant. “Is this okay?” he asked softly. “I can go if you want me to.”

Blaine blinked at him for a few slow seconds, letting his shock-slow brain catch up with the question. He took a breath and shook himself. “Come sit down, it’s freezing.”

Kurt looked relieved, as though he had expected Blaine to turn him out into the snow. He crossed the creaking wooden floor and sat carefully on the other side of the heater, with his legs drawn up to his chest. He folded his arms over the tops of his knees and set his chin against them, looking down at the shifting shadows of the branches outside of the tree house windows as they made strange patterns on the floor.

Blaine let the silence hum between them, drawing his own legs up to his chest and clasping his arms around them. He felt the heater begin to work, little laps of warm air against his right side, and closed his eyes. He put his forehead against his knees and breathed big, slow lungfulls of warm-cold air.

“I’m so sorry about today,” he said quietly.

He felt Kurt move, and looked over to see Kurt’s face turned to him, his cheek against his arms over his knees, an uncertain, half-sad little smile on his lips. “At least I know that you have parents, now,” he said. “You weren’t built in a lab somewhere.”

Blaine sighed and closed his eyes again.

“It’s okay,” Kurt continued, over the quiet hiss of the heater. Then, half a joke, “I’m sorry I’m too gay for your dad.”

Blaine’s eyes squeezed more tightly shut, and his hands clenching into fists against his knees. Of course Kurt had noticed what had happened. Kurt was observant, and he was sensitive to that kind of thing. He felt a hot flush of embarrassment move over his skin, making him shiver in the contrast of the cold air. “You’re not too gay for _anyone_ ,” he said.

He heard Kurt laugh, very lightly, almost _regally_ , and then he said, “I know.” Blaine felt a hand cover his, and he looked over at Kurt to see him smiling slightly. “Neither are you.”

Kurt leaned away again but kept his hand extended towards Blaine in the space between them, the orange light from the heater bathing his palm and slipping between his fingers to cast shadows against the floor. Blaine stared at it for a moment, something catching the breath in his throat. Then he carefully took his glove off and reached out to let Kurt wrap their palms together. He couldn’t remember the last time Kurt had initiated something physical between them, if he ever had. Touch was Blaine’s thing; Kurt tolerated it. Now Kurt had reached for _him_ , to comfort him, and the idea made Blaine a little unsteady, a bright kind of dizzy.

He swallowed and looked away. “I looked like a Jack London character?”

Kurt nodded. It rubbed his cheek against the sleeves of his coat, where his head was still pillowed against his arms and knees. “Though unlike a Jack London character, I don’t think you would consider killing me to warm your hands while I followed you. And I probably wouldn’t leave your dead body in the snow.” He paused for a moment. “I’m the dog in _To Build A Fire_ , in case that wasn’t clear.”

Blaine let out something that was sort of like an airy laugh. “You just referred to yourself as a dog, so things must be serious.” He put his head back against his knees. “Although that makes me the dead man, so I guess I still lose.”

Kurt squeezed his hand. “It really is okay, Blaine,” he murmured. “I understand. I’m sorry – I’m sorry you had to deal with it.”

Blaine shook his head, his forehead brushing against the material of his jeans. “I’m used to it.” Used to the weight of his parents’ disappointment pressing down on him whenever he was in the same house as them, used to the way his father’s eyes would float over him and then away, like Blaine was too bright to look at for more than a moment without going blind. Used to dinners by himself in his room because they hadn’t sat down together as a family in years, far too much shame and discomfort in the air between them to allow any room for appetite. “You don’t usually have to – I’m sorry I put you in a situation where you had to deal with it, too.”

He could hear Kurt’s sarcastic little snort. “I spent a year and a half being thrown into a dumpster three times a week. I promise you that I can deal with anything your parents throw at me.” He hesitated. “Except maybe the fact that it made you miserable.”

Blaine felt a twinge of guilt at that and schooled his face uneasily. It wasn’t Kurt’s fault that any of this had happened, it wasn’t his responsibility to make sure that Blaine was all right. Blaine never should have let anything show in the first place. It was only one night, and then they would be gone and he could go back to Dalton and forget that he had visited home at all. Only one night, and then it would be over. Blaine could steer this away from his personal life and back into positive things, for Kurt, so he wouldn’t worry.

But Blaine couldn’t find any direction to steer it in. He was silent, waiting for something to come to him, some topic of conversation that was better than _I’m sorry your parents are terrible_. But Kurt went first.

He was looking up at the slanted ceiling, taking in the complicated tangles of rafters holding it up. His expression was bland. “Why am I not surprised that you have the Taj Mahal of tree houses?”

That startled a small smile out of Blaine, until his answer rose unbidden to his mouth. “My dad and I built it when I was nine.” So much for changing the subject. Blaine winced inwardly. “He’s an architect, so.” He cast his eyes around the space, letting the windows with real glass, the hinged door, the precise angles of the place finish the sentence for him.

He looked at Kurt, and found Kurt looking at him with hesitant, unmasked interest. His eyes were a little wide, curious, and Blaine could see the questions forming behind them, about Blaine’s father and their relationship and what happened. Blaine’s stomach felt shallow and empty, his breath sharpening a little with anticipation and fear. The silence stretched out, and it almost looked like Kurt was going to let it go (the way that Blaine was praying he would let it go, just let them go back to the house and sleep and wake up normal people again tomorrow). But then Kurt took a steadying breath, flexed the hand not holding Blaine’s, and asked him, “When was the last time that you two were – close?”

The question plummeted Blaine’s heart to his feet, and he felt as though the tree house had lost cabin pressure. It was also the look on Kurt’s face after he asked it, as though he was surprised at himself and a little afraid but so invested in what Blaine was going to say next, whether Blaine was going to back away from it or actually give something honest, something real. Blaine stared at him, blinking, trying to remember how his lungs worked. And then he gave up.

Before he could let himself think about it, he murmured, “Here.” He looked up and around the four walls and ceiling. “Building this place. I don’t even know if we were close then, but it was – better.” He could feel himself talking, but couldn’t believe there were words coming out of his mouth. He watched Kurt helplessly, his eyes wide. “My dad – he does this kind of thing. Activities. Bonding. We never really knew each other very well, even when I was little, before I was out, before anything – but there would be something we did together, every year.” He swallowed, then closed his eyes. “Two summers ago, the year I came out, my dad brought home this useless scrap car, a ‘59 Chevy. We spent every weekend all summer in the garage, rebuilding it.” His eyes opened, focusing on Kurt’s. “I swear to god, we hardly said a word to each other the entire time. He doesn’t know how to talk to me, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

Kurt looked absolutely stricken, his face miserable. He squeezed Blaine’s hand hard in his, and Blaine could see him swallowing down whatever it was he had decided not to say. His fingers pressed into the edges between Blaine’s, and Blaine spread his hand to let Kurt tangle them together. Something swooped in Blaine’s stomach when their palms pressed together.

“I went to Dalton to get away from a lot of things,” Blaine said quietly. Then, hesitantly, “I feel like I’m never going to stop running away from the things that scare me.”

Kurt smiled very, very slightly. “You will,” he said.

Blaine let out a breath. “Why?”

“Well.” Kurt shrugged, pale humor bleeding into the curve of his lips. “You’ve never had someone chasing you before.”

Blaine snorted inelegantly, a little derisively. “You’re going to catch me?”

“Yes.”

And Blaine was caught up on how serious that one word was, how earnest Kurt looked, staring at him through the orange haze of the heater. Kurt’s fingers pressed against the back of Blaine’s hand, and Blaine felt his stomach turn over, and his breath catch, and his eyes widen. Because Kurt was so serious. He was so certain.

“Blaine--” Kurt said. He shook his head, then focused on him. “I’m here. And I care about you. And when I have to – when you need it--” He squeezed Blaine’s hand again. “I’m going to do my best to catch you when you start to run away.”

Blaine’s breath stopped in his throat. He kept staring, his heart pounding in his ears. Kurt was offering this, _actually offering this_. Offering to help save Blaine from himself. No one in Blaine’s life had ever done something close to that. His parents had taken one look at his problems and let him run while they turned the other way. No one had ever run after him. No one had ever followed, but here was Kurt, sitting next to him in the cold, in the dark, and he had come through the snow for this, just to sit next to Blaine and hold his hand. Just to catch him and turn him around again.

Blaine’s mouth wasn’t working, his heart lodged there. “I--” His chest felt like it was going to burst with the complicated, conflicting things filling it up. He gaped like he was drowning. “Thank you,” he managed. “Okay. Thank you.” They were the only words he could think to say, maybe the only words that existed in his head.

Kurt just shook his head, watching him. Then after a moment, he said, “You should come and have dinner at my house next Friday.”

“I--” Blaine was regaining his faculties, albeit slowly. “I thought that Friday night dinner was a sacred rite of Hummelship.”

Kurt rolled his eyes. “I’ll convince my dad to make an exception.” He paused for a moment. “I’m not trying to replace your family. They’re your family. That’s there forever. But I like my family, and I think you will, too.”

Blaine let himself breathe out the word, “Okay.” Faculties once again lost.

Kurt smiled. “Good.” Then he stood, pushing himself off of the wall and to his feet. He turned, and offered his hand down for Blaine to take. “We should go back before we freeze to death. And I want to know what happens when your parents find us in the morning curled up on the couch asleep after watching Disney movies all night.”

Blaine laughed, real, and it felt like he was shaking off something heavy and cumbersome. “Definitely,” he said, taking Kurt’s hand and letting himself be pulled to his feet. He leaned down to snap the heater off and pick it up. Kurt picked up the flashlight.

Kurt let go of his hand to let him climb down the ladder, but picked it back up the second they were both on the ground. He didn’t let go again.


End file.
